Bill Would Keep Medicaid Raise for Primary Care Through 2016

On July 30, 2 senators introduced a bill that would extend a Medicaid raise for primary-care physicians another 2 years through 2016 and make more clinicians eligible for the extra money.

Published Online: August 01, 2014

On July 30, 2 senators introduced a bill that would extend a Medicaid raise for primary-care physicians another 2 years through 2016 and make more clinicians eligible for the extra money.

Given that the temporary pay hike was authorized by the Affordable Care Act (ACA), the bill's prospects are cloudy in the House, controlled by Republicans who want to junk the healthcare reform law, even if the Senate were to pass it.

The ACA allocated funds to boost historically paltry Medicaid rates to Medicare levels in 2013 and 2014 for evaluation and management (E/M) services and vaccine administration. The Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF) estimated in 2012 that Medicaid rates for those services would increase on average by 73%. Physicians eligible for the raise are family physicians, general internists, pediatricians, and subspecialists related to these fields, such as pediatric cardiologists.